


Desperate

by screechfox



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Coma, Don't let the summary fool you it's actually from Martyn's POV, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:43:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5995374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strife has many problems, all of them unfortunately mixed into the unconscious bloodmage called Parvis. Admittedly, the unconscious bit is sort of new.</p><p>And the only person he can think of to help who isn't some form of lightning demigod just so happens to be the man that Parvis left to go and practice the aforementioned blood magic.</p><p>Joy of joys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my former Martyn RP blog, equalityforflowers - "Martyn and strife-desperate"
> 
> (If anyone is still waiting for a Lexica Botania update, it's not out of the question, I've just not been in the right mindset for something as warm and fluffy as that for ages and ages.)

There’s a knock at the door, and Martyn startles.

He  _ never _ gets visitors in the wintertime. He’s not an idiot, he knows why; he’s too icy, too abrasive, for anyone to stick through it for more than a few weeks. It annoys him, a lot, but he’s gotten used to it since the first time it happened.

So a knock at the door is something new - such a shock that he almost knocks over the plant that he’s nursing in the warmth of his home, which doesn’t help his attitude.

For anyone else, it’d be a struggle to pick their way through the mess of flowers and leaves that fill his house in the colder months, but Martyn knows the layout off by heart, weaving through them and barely brushing them as he heads for the door.

He knows it couldn’t be anyone he was friends with - they would have just barged in, no questions asked. But even so, when he pulls the door open to reveal a man in sharp dress who could only be William Strife himself, Martyn is just a little confused.

The confusion doesn’t even abate once he processes what the long, black and white shape in the other man’s arms is.

It’s Parv. Looking very different to the last time Martyn saw him, before he ran off with Strife to do blood magic. Before, he was tan, and while not exactly strong, he was fairly lean. Now, though, his skin is only a few shades warmer than white, and if Martyn squints, he thinks he can make out his bones. 

There are pale lines all over his skin, and the ragged band shirt has rust-red stains on it.

It’s possible that Martyn, already so icy blue in the depths of winter, pales a little himself at the sight - the businessman who Parv has waxed poetical about, carrying the guitarist who is so obviously entrenched in blood magic.

To Martyn’s door?

Martyn’s had barely enough time to process all of this before Strife’s expression turns from whatever it was before into something harsh. “Fix him,” Strife all but snarls, shoving Parv towards him as if Martyn would ever be able to carry him. 

“What?” Martyn replies, on instinct, confused and indignant and annoyed. He doesn’t have any clue what Strife is thinking, doesn’t even have any clue what he means, and Martyn’s going to show it. “I’m going to need more than that.”

Strife’s expression seems to twist further, and, at Martyn’s guess, he seems almost as confused as Martyn feels. “You know magic, Littlewood.” He says - rather redundantly, in Martyn’s opinion, since clearly they both know that fact. “You can fix him.”

_ Now _ Martyn understands. A little. Only just.

He still has about fifty questions, but clearly Strife is out of patience, and he’s pushed aside as the other man shoves his way into his home - almost immediately tripping over a plant on the floor and knocking another few over. Which is just annoying.

“Hey, no,” He says from behind the other man, having spun to look. “You want my help, you don’t just burst into my house. Give him here.”

Martyn’s doubts about being able to carry Parv were unfounded, he finds - which is more worrying than anything - and he manages to navigate himself and the unconscious blood mage over to Martyn’s barely-used bed.

Strife follows, and Martyn can hear him bumping into various plants and their containers with seemingly every step.  _ This _ is who Parv liked enough to never speak to Martyn again because of? Well, Martyn supposes, it’s not like Parv’s the model of grace either.

Or possibly was, judging by how limply he falls to the bed, even as he continues breathing. 

Martyn sits down on the bed, frowning at Parv before looking up and frowning at Strife instead.

“What do you want  _ me _ to do about this?” He asks, still entirely confused on that point. Martyn’s not touched blood magic with a barge pole in all his life - all he knows about it are rumours and hearsay and the instinctual avoidance of something called  _ blood magic _ . “You’re the one who’s been teaching him this stuff for, ooh, the past year.”

Strife stares at him like he’s an idiot, arms crossed and fingers twitching against the fabric of his ever-so-fancy shirt. Maybe Martyn  _ is _ an idiot, though in this company, he really doubts it. “It’s magic, Littlewood.” He says, tone unreadable. “You can fix this.”

Ah. Martyn sees where Strife’s coming from, but he can also see the several hundred flaws of logic in his statement. He cocks a brow at the other man.

“Yeah, no?” He shakes his head as he answers, a little incredulous that apparently Strife has such poor knowledge of magic. “I say again,  _ you’re _ the one who’s been teaching him blood magic for the past year. If  _ I _ knew anything about that kind of stuff, I reckon he’d have stuck with me.”

For a moment Strife’s expression appears to be one of utmost horror, and Martyn would be very amused if there wasn’t an unconscious and possibly comatose ex-friend lying on his bed. But then it’s very obviously schooled into annoyance and slight incredulousness. Before he can say anything as cutting as he clearly wants to, Martyn interrupts him with a query.

“Why don’t you just kill him and wait for him to respawn?” He asks, never above abusing the respawn for his own benefit-slash-amusement.

If Martyn thought Strife had looked briefly horrified before, that’s nothing on how he looks after that blunt question. The other man visibly blanches, looking scandalised by the very suggestion, even though it’s how Martyn gets most of his kicks during advent. (Or really, most of the time when he’s hanging around Toby.)

“I can’t-- What-- Why would I--” Strife continues in that vein for a little while, and Martyn can’t hold back the grin this time. It’s just too amusing watching Strife, who he knows isn’t a Minecraftian native, come up against the principles of someone who’s lived here since before the respawn was even invented.

He doesn’t interrupt again, though, letting Strife work through all of the issues he very clearly has with that idea.

Eventually, Strife seems to manage, though the tempo his fingers are tapping out on his arm has drastically increased. His expression goes stern and serious again, and Martyn wonders, in the moment before the other man speaks, how on Minecraftia Parv got on with him.

“He might not come back, and you know it, Littlewood.” Now, that is a valid point, and Martyn frowns. He knows there  _ are _ ways of permanently killing someone who’s in the respawn, though he’s never seen them himself - and since most of them are magic based, it figures that  _ blood magic _ would be a likely candidate.

“Yeah, I guess,” Martyn replies simply, before turning his attention back to Parv. He’s still pretty sure Strife would be better at this than him - blood magic, technology, and actually having been around the other man before he got like this are all more useful than Martyn’s Ars Magica, herbs, and loneliness. 

“I don’t know anything about blood magic, though. Not as much as you think I do, at least.” Martyn tries to keep himself polite, but his tone goes sharp at the end, barbed as he chances another glance at Strife. “Unless it’s something mundane, I can’t help.”

Strife frowns. More so than before. His gaze turns from Martyn to Parv as well, and he steps closer. “All magic’s roughly the same, though,” He says, like it’s a fact and Martyn should trust him implicitly. Which, to be a  _ little bit  _ fair, there’s definitely some truth in that. But not enough for Martyn to stop himself from laughing incredulously.

“That’s like saying a daisy and a flytrap need the same care because they’re both plants.” Which is a bit of an odd comparison, probably, but Martyn reckons it gets his points across. “I don’t know a thing about blood magic,  _ as I’ve said before _ .”

Before Strife can say anything in response to that, Martyn offers up one of the few useful pointers he can. “I’ve seen something like this before,” In a way, “And I guess it’ll either make him a lot better or a lot worse to be away from… the blood magic.”

Being connected to a forest as your life source is  _ sort of _ the same as being connected to a blood altar, right?

Strife doesn’t seem to find it useful, though, scoffing. “Very helpful, Littlewood.” Martyn raises a brow in a ‘you asked’ gesture, before Strife looks back at Parv. His expression turns almost wistful, at Martyn’s best guess, his tone a little more strained when he speaks again. “Is there  _ anything _ you can do?”

Martyn pauses, weighing his options and looking around at what is, to anyone else, a maze of plants with no discernable sorting. There’s got to be some herb or other that can at least help with the whole pale-bedraggled-coma thing, if not the blood magic.

“... I’d probably need a few days to refresh myself. I don’t generally get comatose bloodmages; I don’t exactly know how to help this.” Martyn hesitates a little before continuing. “Maybe take him back with you to… wherever you live. You can feed him and keep an eye on him and whatever, and I can search through my stocks in peace.”

Strife is quiet for a few moments, and Martyn can tell that he doesn’t want to settle for what Martyn’s offering. But then he looks up, meeting Martyn’s eyes for the briefest of seconds, and nods, before looking away at Parv again.

“It’s a deal,” He says, and Martyn knows he will be back in  _ exactly _ a few days - and if he doesn’t have anything then, there’ll be some form of hell to pay. But once Martyn’s nodded in acknowledgement, that’s it.

Apparently Strife’s said all he needed.

The other man scoops up Parv with ease, and this time manages to navigate out without causing anymore property damage. Martyn still follows, just in case, to watch him fly off, and makes sure to keep one eye on the shape in the sky until it’s completely invisible anymore.

Well.

Time to talk to  _ a lot _ of plants.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at screechfoxes on Tumblr. Have a nice day!


End file.
